In a very short time, watching videos online has become a common pastime, and the imagination of artists and other content owners continues to fuel this trend. Meanwhile, across the industry, advertisers and video publishers continue to look for the best solution that balances the needs of video fans with the need for video sites to generate the revenue that enables them to continue to be creative as they grow.

Enter, stage left: the AdSense for video beta. This approach takes the same non-intrusive InVideo ad format used on YouTube and extends it across video partner sites on the Google Content Network. This enables advertisers to run a single campaign across the largest network of online video content.

Unique to AdSense for video are text overlay ads contextually targeted to a combination of signals in your videos and on your site. With these overlay ads, the user's experience is not interrupted; users determine how much they want to interact with the ad.

We have two major goals: to make it easier for publishers to monetize video online, and for advertisers to learn how to reach the video community. Towards these ends, today we're also launching a single destination with an overview of various options to expand online video opportunities called Google Video Advertising Solutions. We hope this will be your starting point to understand how to leverage the Google Content Network and YouTube to make the most out of the online video experience. You can also see our overview videos for advertisers and publishers -- because isn’t video the best way to experience video?

We've been working with a number of video partners (e.g. popular destinations like BobVila.com, eHow, MyDamnChannel, ExpertVillage, PinkBike, TheNewsRoom, and social video aggregators like Revver, blip.tv, and GodTube). And we're also working with several key video platform solution solutions like Brightcove, Yume, Tremor Media, and Eyespot Network, who have plugged our ads into their platforms.

There are some criteria that publishers have to meet to participate in AdSense for video, which you can learn about on the Inside AdSense blog.

As with many things we do around here, we’ll keep testing various ad formats, iterate and expand, so keep an eye on us.